From the Guardian: Donald Trump dossier: intelligence sources vouch for author's credibility

If you like spy stories, you'll love this.

It describes the career of Christopher Steele - the British spy responsible for the dossier alleging that Russia has compromising information on Donald Trump. The facts are still in dispute, but the details about how spy agencies work is worth your time.

- Click here for the article.

Over a career that spanned more than 20 years, Steele performed a series of roles, but always appeared to be drawn back to Russia; he was, sources say, head of MI6’s Russia desk. When the agency was plunged into panic over the poisoning of its agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the then chief, Sir John Scarlett, needed a trusted senior officer to plot a way through the minefield ahead – so he turned to Steele. It was Steele, sources say, who correctly and quickly realised that Litvinenko’s death was a Russian state “hit”.

As good as he was, Steele was unlikely to get the top MI6 job, perhaps because his specialisms were not a priority in that period – Russian espionage was taking a back seat to Islamic terrorism and non-state threats. And, of course, there is money to be made in the private sector – lots of it, particularly in the past two years. He decided to quit the service in 2009.

As the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, exerted influence in all kinds of spheres, so Steele’s background made him hot property. Though he could not travel to Russia, he appears to have maintained his contacts and made new ones, using old-school techniques: going out, meeting people, shaking hands, making friends – and paying for information.

With his business partner, Chris Burrows, he set up the London-based company Orbis Business Intelligence, which was busy and expanding. Their operation would have been a good choice for anyone trying to gather intelligence about Russia and Trump.

It is unlikely that Steele would have had direct contact with the unnamed Kremlin officials who allegedly gave sensitive information on the president-elect. In fact, it’s believed the former spy hasn’t been able to visit Russia for more than 20 years. Rather, Steele would have tapped up his network of sources deep inside the country, some of them dating from his time there and others cultivated later, British officials suggested.

In turn, these individuals will have had sources of their own. Steele would likely have subcontracted some of his Trump investigation to trusted intermediaries in Moscow, who will have reported back to him via secure channels.

For more: What we know – and what's true – about the Trump-Russia dossier.

Here's a key allegation:

It says Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years”. Moscow’s aim is “to encourage splits and divisions in the western alliance” and to upend the “ideals-based international order” set up after the second world war. Putin’s preference, according to the report, is for a return to the “Great Power” politics of the 19th century, where big states pursue their own interests.

From the Director of National Intelligence: Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution

As far as I am aware, this is the most comprehensive detail of the facts related to the accusation that Russia interfered with the recent election.

- Click here for it.

The Washington Post outlines the report.

- Click here for U.S. intelligence agencies: Putin ordered intervention in presidential election.

Russia carried out a comprehensive cyber campaign to upend the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and “aspired to help” elect Donald Trump by discrediting his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a report released Friday.

The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying that Moscow’s assault represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” beyond previous election-related espionage.

The campaign was ordered by Putin himself and initially sought primarily to undermine public faith is the U.S. democratic process, “denigrate Secretary Clinton” and harm her electoral prospects. But as the campaign proceeded, Russia “developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump” and repeatedly sought to elevate him by “discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

The document represents an extraordinarily direct and detailed account of a longstanding United States' adversary’s multi-pronged intervention in a fundamental pillar of American democracy.

From the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services: A hearing on "Foreign Cyber Threats to the United States"

Here's a link for more information related to the hearing below.

Aside for general information related to the specific question about possible Russian hacking during the 2016 election, it also offers 2305 students a look at one of the central functions of a congressional committee - the holding of hearing related to issues within the jurisdiction of the committee.

- Click here for the page dedicated to the hearing.

The witnesses provide an indication of what types of executive officials engage in activities within the jurisdiction of the committee. These positions are:

1 - The Director of National Intelligence.
2 - The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
3 - United States Cyber Command.
4 - National Security Agency.
5 - Central Security Service.

Here is information about the witnesses:

1 - James R. Clapper.
2 - Marcel J. Lettre.
3 - Michael S. Rogers.

These of course are people affiliated with the Obama Administration, In a later post I'll highlight the people Donald Trump has appointed to replace them.

Lawfare published an assessment of the hearing. The author points out how cordial and respectful members of the committee were towards the witnesses, and the intelligence community in general. This is in sharp contrast to comments by Trump.

- Click here for What Yesterday’s Senate Armed Services Committee Portends.

While John McCain, the committee chairman, was unspairing in his criticism of the Obama administration for not developing a cyber deterrence strategy, his demeanor towards the DNI was one of profound respect and cordiality. Others too made a point of thanking Clapper for his long service in various intelligence capacities and across administrations.

The message here was not merely one of fondness for the man himself, though that was evident at times; it was a way of conveying admiration and respect for the intellingence community that he and NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers were there representing. Sometimes, this linkage was explicit. At one point, Clapper was asked to describe his career and its apolitical nature and was asked pointedly whether it was representative of others in the community. He was asked, more than once, for his opinion of Julian Assange and about how Assange is regarded within the community. (Needless to say, Clapper’s not a fan.) Nor was the love fest purely emanating from the Democratic side. The hearing, pretty much wall to wall, showcased the committee’s confidence in the intelligence community as a set of institutions with integrity. At a time when that integrity is under fire from the President-elect, it was a powerful statement.

Indeed, no defense of Trump’s position emerged in any significant way from any member of the committee. To be sure, Sen. Tom Cotton raised the question of whether Trump will be worse for Russia than Hillary Clinton would have been, given his commitment to increased defense spending. And he asked questions that aimed to clarify the relatively narrow scope of the IC’s findings with respect to Russia. Sen. Thom Tillis, doing his best imitation of Noam Chomsky, declared that “there is research done by a professor up at Carnegie Mellon that is estimating that the United States has been involved one way or another in 81 different elections Since World War II. That is not including the coups or regime changes. And Russa has done it 36 times.” But Tillis's Chomskyism was fainthearted and short-lived, and no Republican on the committee stood up for the proposition that the hack may not have been a Russian effort to influence the election. Mostly, Republican senators who weren’t leading the charge contented themselves instead with asking the witnessess about other foreign cybersecurity concerns.
And some GOP senators were really on fire. Sen. McCain set the tone when he opened the hearing by declaring that “there’s no escaping the fact that this committee meets today for the first time in this new Congress in the aftermath of an unprecedented attack on our democracy.”

From Politico: House intel committee looks into eavesdropping on Congress

I bet this story has legs. Great separated powers conflict - in addition to foreign policy.

- Click here for the article.

A House panel on Wednesday announced it is seeking information from the Obama administration on U.S. intelligence collection that may have swept up members of Congress. 

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s announcement comes after a Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. collected information on private exchanges between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of Congress during ongoing negotiations for a nuclear deal with Iran.

“The House Intelligence Committee is looking into allegations in the Wall Street Journal regarding possible Intelligence Community (IC) collection of communications between Israeli government officials and members of Congress,” Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “The Committee has requested additional information from the IC to determine which, if any, of these allegations are true, and whether the IC followed all applicable laws, rules, and procedures.”

In response, a senior administration official suggested on Wednesday afternoon that lawmakers on designated committees may already have been informed of the data collection now in the news. "The Intelligence Community is required to keep Congressional oversight committees fully informed of intelligence activities," the official said in a statement.

Although the information collected by intelligence officials apparently included comments from members of Congress, there's no evidence yet that those American lawmakers were the intended targets of the surveillance, as opposed to the Israeli premier and his aides.

For more:

- The National Interest: The NSA-Israel Scandal: Who Cares?
- Wall Street Journal: U.S. Spy Net on Israel Snares Congress.

A $52 billion dollar budget for spying

The latest revelation from the documents released by Edward Snowden. These has been classified for years.

U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top secret budget.

The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses those funds or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.

The 178-page budget summary for the National Intelligence Program details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, which has 107,035 employees.

Here's a link to the document.

What is the National Security Agency?

Here's the introductory paragraph from NSA's Wikipedia page:

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems,[1] which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography.

Histories and descriptions can be found in multiple other places online:

- Time Topics: NSA.
- Federaltion of American Scientists: NSA.
- Here is the FAS's history of the NSA.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation: NSA.
- And the official website here.

Top Secret America

Last year the Washington Post published an interesting study of the security and intelligence apparatus set up after 9/11.

Secret Codes and the Founding Fathers

This could a fun read.

The Director of National Intelligence Resigns

Story here.

Commentators argued that the position, designed after 9-11 to coordinate the 16 agencies which gather intelligence, has no real power and needs to be redesigned. Some argue that the position should be eliminated and the CIA Director should serve as coordinator of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

- Wikipedia.
- Times Topics: U.S. Intelligence Community.
- Times Topics: Dennis C. Blair.

Executive Order: Bush Overhauls Intelligence Agencies

From the Wall Street Journal:

The White House is expected Thursday to unveil the largest overhaul of intelligence powers in a generation, spelling out the responsibilities of each intelligence agency in the wake of several reforms following the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to government officials familiar with the plans.President George W. Bush signed the executive order updating spy powers Wednesday, the officials said. Designed to bolster the power of the director of national intelligence, the revision has been a source of significant turf battles among intelligence agencies, which fear the rewrite of spy powers is coming at their expense.

Congress created the intelligence director's post as part of a series of intelligence reforms in 2004, but the extent of his authority has been a constant source of debate among intelligence officials and lawmakers.

The overhaul gives the intelligence director a greater role in hiring and firing agency heads, authority to remove barriers to intelligence sharing, and the responsibility for overseeing the acquisition of expensive programs such as new spy satellites, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. It also hands the intelligence director more power to direct midlevel intelligence officers.

The executive order can be found on the White House website.